


The Vat of Acid

by theinvalidedsoldier



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Apologies, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Rickorty if you want it to be, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Unhealthy Relationships, rick is canonically not nice, rick really is an asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:41:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinvalidedsoldier/pseuds/theinvalidedsoldier
Summary: "All of Mory's recently regained confidence, social stamina and self-worth, once again crumbling in the hands of the crazed scientist, all to prove a point. Morty wasn't indispensable, this was his reminder."The repercussions of S4E8 take a toll on Morty.
Relationships: Rick Sanchez & Morty Smith, Rick Sanchez/Morty Smith
Comments: 14
Kudos: 125





	The Vat of Acid

**Author's Note:**

> My first Rick and Morty fic! Aaah, nerve-wracking honestly. You'll notice that a huge chunk of the dialogue is nabbed from the episode, but I honestly hope that it 1. familiarises me more with the odd dialogue style of Rick and Morty especially, and 2. grounds you all in the reality of the show. I hope to do dialogue snatches like this when I'm basing my fics on specific episodes, as I think it seems more tightly wound with the canon.
> 
> It's important to note that this is based near wholly on Season 4 Episode 8 'The Vat of Acid Episode', so if you haven't yet seen that you should absolutely go watch it now, as this fic will almost certainly spoil it for you, and confuse the shit out of you.
> 
> Also, the italics in this fic mostly represent the canon bits of plot and dialogue in the episode itself, only towards the end is there a deliberately clunky transition from that text to regular, as we see it moving away from the canon and into my imagined present. Sorry if it gets confusing.
> 
> Enjoy!

_"You know who I am? Even if you kill me, you're a **dead man**." The threat fell empty on the duo’s ears, well accustomed to more than meagre attempts at commination and intimidation. It was possible (yet unlikely) that the snaggle-toothed, trench coat wearing cliche wasn't aware of who exactly he was talking to. Rick Sanchez, known destroyer of planets, and all that. That, or he was foolish. Very, very foolish._

_"You serious?" Rick groaned, a poor attempt at fear and resignation. It was ridden with sarcasm, a smirk playing at the old man's lips. "Morty, he's right, we're screwed. Let's just end it, quick death, come on." And with that, Morty was dragged edgeways over the railings and downward._

_"Awh, man."_

* * *

Morty's trembling fingers ran over the tantalising red button of the damned contraption that had started it all, it was mocking him, it had been for a very long time. As his digits circled the corresponding blue to the red he distinctly remembered his blackened and rotting fingers, pulled from sopping wet gloves. They had been well beyond freezing at that point, even beyond numb, how his fingers even responded or how his motor functions hadn't ceased to exist at that point was well beyond him. He remembered the bloody tips of the remains of his fingers as his skin pulled off, stuck to the screen of his phone as he dialled 911. He recalled his inevitable collapse, the snow feeling like a blanket beneath his rapidly deteriorating frame, with the whirring of the helicopter above. The sounds of _her_ calling for him- no.

The young boy's head snapped up as he caught himself mid-thought. It was dangerous to think about _her_ again. He couldn't even bring himself to utter her name aloud, it was too much hardship. He could remember everything as clear as the frozen lake they had been surrounded by for weeks, yet he didn't want to remember all that had happened.

All that had happened because hehimself, Morty, had been too stubborn and too impatient to stay in that stupid fucking vat of acid. The stupid fucking vat of acid. The stupid fucking vat, of stupid fucking acid. What would've happened had he just held his tongue, stifled his glare? Why couldn't he have let Rick take control of the situation like always, who did Morty think he was with his sudden interjections and snide remarks? Was he is grandfather now, or maybe his mother?

It wasn't the remote's fault, it wasn't the vat of acid's, fuck, it wasn't even Rick's. Morty acknowledged with disdain that all of this was his own fault. Had he known his role and kept his mouth shut like a good little boy, he wouldn't have a memory of a girl that probably now only knew his name from filing a police report and memories of what could've been the future trapped in a non-existent past.

Morty shouldn't have lost his temper, he should've stayed in the vat.

* * *

_The 'acid' was strangely thin, almost like wading in smoke, it was translucent enough to see Rick through, yet inherently liquid enough to warrant the tacky tank of oxygen bolted to the bottom. Talk about unnecessary dramatics, the type Rick claimed to be 'above'._

_As Morty shot a steely glare at his elder through the green haze, his patience seemed to be crumbling along with his resolve. Their spat in the ship had left them both agitated, mores-so Morty, unsurprisingly. The tedious droning conversation stemming from the aforementioned 'boss' and his hopeless lackeys were beginning to erode away whatever sanity the boy was grappling onto left. What was the point of this charade? Though Morty was typically against murder, unless wholly necessary, shoving Rick's plasma gun up through the surface of the makeshift acid and blasting a hole in their heads was much, much more favourable than **this**. _

_Morty couldn't begin to comprehend the levels of stupidity emanating from his grandfather. Rick, fucking Rick of all people, was **bombing** his plan spectacularly, and watching it unfurl was nothing short of delicious. _

_For a split second, he wondered if he was being too harsh on the high-functioning alcoholic, yet with the amount of shit Morty took on an exhausting daily basis on everything from his intelligence to his appearance - a little bit of reprieve and vengeance was due. I mean, come on, a vat of fake acid? Fucking really? It even had had matching trapdoors, each reading 'BONES', unremarkable. Unoriginal. Two of Rick's least favourite words. That, and 'sobriety'._

_It hadn't been Rick's worst-ever idea, that went to the infamous 'harpoon seize' of Zeta-319, but it wasn't one of his best. Which Morty was sure to let him know of._

_"Great story boss," Parroted one of the hopeless bodyguards, a desperate vie for attention and respect. "Yeah, really detailed." Crowed the other. It was definitely laughable, almost pitiful._

_"Yeah, well, I got a million of 'em."_

_For many reasons, Morty didn't doubt that this was untrue, yet neither of the pair, in fact, wanted to hear 'a million of 'em'. They would've much preferred eviscerating the lot of them and dropping their carcasses into the authentic acid neighbouring their pathetic container, yet upon further reflection, he realised that may have been a bit too familiarly apathetic and violent. It takes one to know one, surely._

_"Should we drop our buddy in here before we go?"_

_Morty looked towards Rick, panicked, vouching for his reaction. He was steely and cool, resolved even amidst dire situations._

_He could feel his temper rising more and more after the ladle and the incessant conversation that continued to ensue. The dumb fucks were really debating on if acid could lose it's 'acid powers' after its dissolving virginity had been taken. Why couldn't they just leave? Why did Rick have to be so goddamn stubborn, and admit that his idea had no more warrant than Morty's pornhub account? Algorithm, my ass._

_"Here, grab that rat-like creature, we'll do a little test." It was then that the 'SPARE BONES' came in handy, Rick already carving away at what seemed to be a rib, into the most comically and anatomically incorrect rodent bones known to man and rat-kind alike. For a genius, the blue-haired man often displayed the most unbearable level of ignorance at the simplest of things, it took Morty by surprise seeing such weakness in the self-proclaimed God. He wasn't so above us all if he didn't know what rat bones looked like now was he? No._

_Taking them both by surprise, a hideous malformed rat was plonked into the vat, head whirring between Rick and Morty violently, circling violently for air as the pair tried to grapple for him. Amidst the commotion the rest of the bones came loose from their entrapment, floating up quickly alongside the miniature 'replicas' of the creature that Morty was trying to wrestle from his grandfather's hands. Another vicious glare was lasered at the scientist, and boy did he hope it was cutting._

_"Ohh!" Sounded from above, the idiocy unbearable, they all seemed to be shocked that the mini rodent had actually been brandishing a full-sized human skeleton underneath its foot length body. Fucking dimwits. "How many sets of bones this rat got?"_

_Morty had had enough, he leaned back with rodent in hand and resigned himself to the situation, as much of a, 'fuck you, Rick, you look fucking stupid' as he could muster with minimal facial movement and his hopefully piercing scowl. The animal started to wriggle desperately in Morty's hands, begging for oxygen, which he granted with the nozzle of his own tank supply. His patience was going, going, soon to be gone._

_"Alright, that tears it, I'm cancelling the rest of my night and calling a bone scientist. We're getting to the bottom of this--" It was gone. Patience, well and truly gone. Ripped from him like Rick's last semblance of control over the whole ordeal._

_"Jesus fucking Christ, enough already!" Morty screeched, lobbing the petrified_ _creature at a lackey and attempting a swift homicide and failing miserably. All of this shit for a lame-ass vat of acid. It's not even that Rick wanted to selflessly avoid a standoff and an ensuing shootout, the man had far too much different coloured blood on his hands to even dare to pull that card. No, Rick wanted to prove a point. As always. Only this time Morty had shown him up, because this time Rick Sanchez, was wrong._

* * *

The memories swarming his head were consuming him, and it wasn't long before Morty's hand flew over his mouth to stifle the sobs beginning to wrack his body. The tears came in waves, they first started as a generous trickle, but now the floodgates had been opened and the hyperventilation began, weighing down on his chest.

Morty knew the nature of his and Rick's relationship could never be described as 'healthy'. It was strange, more than occasionally veered on abusive. Yet it was always supposed to be Rick and Morty, Rick and Morty for a hundred years, no matter how much Rick destroyed him. It was Rick and Morty whether he wanted it to be or not. He had latched onto his grandfather at such a feeble and developmental stage at his life, making it virtually impossible to ever truly transcend past the twelve-year-old boy he used to be. Complacent and stuttering, one big yellow doormat for the tribulations of all known universes.

Months and months worth of school down the drain to be pulled along, sometimes non-consensually, on a journey far beyond even his own imagination. And he had seen a _lot._ It was the most addicting aspect of his relationship with Rick. No matter the insults and jibes that were hurled at him; the smells and beauty of many foreign planets never ceased to amaze him. It was living out all of his favourite sci-fi movies, but more. He wasn't quite the protagonist, but at least he landed the role of sidekick, at least he was something to the mighty, infamous, feared Sanchez, right?

Then Morty began to wonder if either of them could ever call themselves a 'protagonist', if rampant guards shooting at them upon their almost immediate arrival being the tell-tale sign of an unwelcome presence. It happened on almost every planet. And then the speculations began. If Rick was the antagonist, what did that make him?

At the start of their adventures, Morty could never fully understand as to why his Rick was so universally feared. Sure, he was unstable and erratic at the best of times, and had the crudest mouth known to man, but what about him was to be _feared_? What made him the monster that army's fled from? That the fathers and sons, mothers and daughters cringed and cowered from?

Simply put, Rick Sanchez _was_ a monster. Only now Morty was the monster's ally, his accomplice. Morty too was the monster under the bed of children. Parents warned their kids with not only Rick's silhouette in mind but also Morty's luminous shadow, trailing along, ever eager. 

This effect Rick had on those around him could be mesmerising at times, without a shadow of a doubt. Watching an 11-foot tall human-ogre hybrid cower and shit himself at Rick's furrowed eyebrow was enough to make anyone be stunned with awe. It initially made Morty contemplate precisely the things Rick had done, yet he grew to accept this enigma as he did with many other of the scientists 'quirks'. It was only now, when the anger of Rick Sanchez had been aimed at him that Morty realised just how vulnerable he was without his counterpart - if he could ever call Rick that, if he could ever dare again.

As of recent, Morty had been getting cheekier. His remarks became louder, more integral, and they held more bite. And it did not go unnoticed. Morty had begun to treat Rick as an equal, and to everyone's tremendous surprise (most notably Rick's), Rick did too. Their adventures had become less of a temperamental chore to him and more of an exciting endeavour. Morty's stutter had mellowed, and he became evidently stronger and braver, taking risks and outmanoeuvring even the cleverest of intergalactic predators. He was becoming more than a sidekick, more a valued companion.

But what Morty gained with bravery in their adventures, he gained in courage with Rick. He became agitated quicker and voiced it much more brazenly, and much less hesitantly. Most of it Rick seemed to allow, at times it even seemed that he enjoyed their spats, as if for once he was having a dispute with someone even remotely close to the wavelength he was on - but Morty's recent remarks on the pitiful vat of acid had crossed a predetermined boundary, struck a chord in a place Morty had not intended, and he had paid dearly for it. He was reminded wholeheartedly as to why planets quaked in petrification upon Rick's entry. This is what Rick did to you if he wanted you to know your place, know your value, know your worth. 

And the worst of it truly was, this wasn't even a measly fraction of Rick Sanchez' wrath, this was a mere sample of what he did simply because he had been put out. Simply because he _could_. All of Mory's recently regained confidence, social stamina and self-worth, once again crumbling in the hands of the crazed scientist, all to prove a point. Morty wasn't indispensable, this was his reminder.

* * *

_"Just admit it was a shitty idea!"_

_This to Morty was hardly veering into unchartered territory, it wasn't the first time he had reprimanded Rick for being foolish or unthinking, or for putting their lives at risk for an inconsequential goal, yet this time Morty wasn't doing it out of genuine anger or concern for his own safety. It was merely out of spite, and he was trying to prove his own point._

_"Having a grandson?" Rick quipped, face stony, eyes rabid. He was just as intent on proving himself as Morty, maybe more. What, with more to lose. It had seemed as of only near recent that the starry-eyed, far-off wonder that would encapsulate his grandsons face when he achieved the (colloquially penned) 'impossible' in mere seconds was beginning to diminish. He couldn't impress the kid anymore, having to go to extraordinary lengths even to his own tastes to achieve a moment even slightly akin to those that would frequently occur when Morty was younger. It meant that he had to work harder for longer, and effort and dedication was never Rick's forte, unless he was jacked up on something extra-funky._

_It made each and every gasp of delight and speculation a moment to be cherished, though he would **never, ever** admit it. Attachments were as dangerous to Rick as they were distasteful, even the mere thought of them making him blindly rummage for his flask - yet he never could've predicted the impact Morty's opinion on him could have. _

_He had nothing to prove to the scrawny, bumbling mess, yet Rick that more and more frequently his day would revolve around the boy's wellbeing and go-ahead. Which made his grandsons dig at the acid boil his blood in an unprecedented manner, weeks of similar comments reaching a pinnacle. He was getting sick his attitude, regardless if he cared or not._

_"A vat of acid?" Morty proclaimed, his tone laced with the type of sneer and scrutiny that made Rick's eye twitch. "Are you dying of dementia?"_

_Morty deliberately kept his eyes away from his grandfather, not caring to see the eye rolls and the snorts of derision. He was tired and cranky, an admittedly unfortunate combination for a pubescent teenage boy coupled with his volatile, high-functioning alcoholic granddad. He took instead to staring blankly out the window, watching as nebulas and stars past him brightly, their twinkles not reflecting their spirit into Morty._

_It was hardly Morty's fault that Rick had too much pride to admit his shortcomings, even if they both knew that a fake vat of acid was one of the worst ideas to come from Rick's brain since the standoff at the White House to get Morty a selfie. As oddly 'sweet' it seemed to be. Misguided might've been the right word._

_Zoning back in, Morty could hear parroting off about his adventures as a pickle without Morty's influence. Typical, he always reverted to bragging about notably past accomplishments to validate the ones in the present. If Morty didn't know any better, which he did, he would call it childish._

_"Maybe there's a connection there." Rick drawled, the beginnings of smugness aerating from his tone. It was bait, absolutely. But Morty was meant to be the child out of the two of him, so he really couldn't help himself._

_"Excuse me?"_

_"What's that cool thing you did without me again? The awesome thing? I-I-I guess you wanted a dragon?" Morty furrowed his eyebrows, something more than anger clawing at this throat. You could say what you wanted about the man, but Rick knew how to play, he knew where to kick where it hurts. "Mm, mwah. Unforgettable."_

_"God, fuck you," Morty spat, crossing his arms and darting his eyes furiously out the window once more. They were treading on dangerous territory now, he could feel it. The tension in the ship was palpable, yet he had convinced himself that Rick had started it. Bringing up Balthromaw was low, low even for the likes of Rick. Yet it was telling that Rick was bringing that up as a last resort. He constantly insulted and berated Morty, usually half-assed and out of sheer habit than anything else, but it was only when it started to get personal that Morty realised he had successfully got underneath Rick's skin. He hoped he was making it crawl._

_"You trying as hard as you can to hurt me right now, proves my point!"_

_He was right, absolutely right. It made Rick's eye twitch again, Morty was pretty much bang on._

_"I'll let you know when you have a point, and the world will know when I **try** to hurt you." _

_It was practically prophetic._

* * *

Morty Smith's confidence was fleeting, understatement of the century. An even partially positive comment on Rick's part towards the impressionable teen was enough to send him floating to Cloud 9, with it sometimes only taking a single word to send him hurtling back down. 

The teen didn't doubt with an alarming amount of resignation that if Rick wanted, he could rip him apart limb from limb, verbatim from verbatim (whether emotionally or physically) and put him all back together with not an ounce of effort or care in the world. Morty understood Rick, or at least he thought he was beginning to understand him and grasp the basics as to why he was the way that he was. He knew that Rick lashed out viciously when cornered, his razor-edged tongue doing far more damage than any weapon could ever wish to accomplish. Yet even in knowing this Morty couldn't understand how Rick could do this to _him_. So nonchalantly, so blatantly and so uncaringly. 

Rick had put Morty through unparalleled trauma, knives in places that knives shouldn't be, a shot in the ankle, seeds up his ass, that Jellybean's adventurous hands sliding down to his- stop. 

Yet through thick and thin, the worst of the worst, this was the cruellest thing Rick had done to him. Morty knew that with every semblance of his being.

Rick had essentially (and however indirectly) given him the greatest source of happiness and self-worth, love, and had torn it away when he had become just the right amount of enamoured. 

_Her_ hair, her smile, her azure coloured jumper that she never seemed to take off even when the weeks turned into months, all of it. Every semblance of her being made Morty grin from ear to ear, she made his heart flutter in a way Jessica had never accomplished, made Morty feel things that were previously unfathomable. Where Jessica was an obsession, an almost conformity on Morty's part, _she_ was a blessing. A blessing from a god Morty didn't believe in, an entity he had no faith in but thanked all the same. 

Yet all too often did Rick refer to himself as a god, too often to not believe it. A divine entity to be hailed and worshipped. God warranted a capital with Rick, it was true to his form. He was the God that gifted Morty with seldom content, and he was the God who snatched it away.

She was everything Morty seemed not to be. With her intense love for books and academia, or the Cheshire grin she would adopt when she had finally figured out that zinger of a Math equation, or even the way she annoyedly pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose after a passionate speech on the importance of animal protection agencies. She wasn't totally self-assured, as she had her moments of insecurity and downfall, but those made her all the worthwhile for Morty. She was totally human, and she was all _his_.

Further reminiscing caused him to snort derisively at his own stupidity, how he hadn't realised that it would all backfire in the end, he didn't know. Morty's weren't prohibited to be happy for that long, they'd grow standards, a spine. Boring holes of resentment into the remote that reflected his innards did nothing for Morty anymore, it did nothing knowing that if he had bit the bullet he almost definitely wouldn't be in this situation.

C-137 was the Rogue, the reckless, the passionate, the outlier. He wasn't only renowned for his non-conforming attitude and distaste for politics, it was the way in which he treated his Morty that tore attention from even the most uncaring of Ricks. Though his occasional affection towards his Morty was deemed to be revolutionary to nearly every other existing Rick, it was the punishments he dealt out that differentiated him from others too.

C-137 could be golden to his Morty, but he could just as equally be rotten too.

His passion and recklessness proved dangerous. His insults held more personality, more fervour. Where some Ricks wouldn't even care to give their Morty the breath and energy required for an insult, Rick _dedicated_ himself to landing a verbal punch at Morty when he needed to. Though you would never hear a confirmation pass the Rogue's lips, his care for his Morty was only exemplified when mad, he did care what Morty thought of him. He just had questionable ways of showing it.

* * *

_"Aha! You can't do it!" Morty quipped, the alarm bells screaming at him as Rick's gaze tightened around him. He still held his ground._

_Though his grandfather claimed to be vehemently immune to Morty's poor attempt at reverse psychology, or 'negging' as he had so eloquently put it, a blind man could ascertain that the remarks were getting to him. The supposedly impenetrable man, the cold, crass scientist baring no heart, being wound up by a fourteen-year-old. Funny, that._

_With eyes narrowed and mouth clenched in a severe, unforgiving line Rick stated, "I can do **anything** , Morty." _

_And boy, did Morty dream that it was untrue._

* * *

"I'm such a fucking idiot," Morty sniffled, cheeks becoming stiff along with the sting of his drying tears. A rivulet more was banging against the back of his eyes to escape, he was just another stray memory away from snapping again, and he didn't know if he would be able to crawl back out of this one alive. "I'm such a fucking moron."

Throughout his and Rick's adventures, it would be undeniable to say that Morty's mind had been tainted and thwarted by all that he had experienced. It was expected to the slightest extent that there would be mental repercussions to all that the _child_ had seen and done. Yet between killing perfect replica clones of his family members, destroying an entire civilisation and enacting an alien Pearl Harbour, the ramifications of his now non-existent love affair were the most detrimental to Morty's mental health so far.

It wouldn't have been the first time the teen had considered suicide, the crushing weight of the multiple lives he seemed to live bombarded him on a nearly daily basis. The pressure was bearable on most days. Keyword, _most._

His thoroughly fucked up family played a crucial role also. His mother was a burgeoning alcoholic and a cripplingly un-self-aware narcissist (at least Rick wasn't ignorant in that regard), his father was a cesspool of insecurity and low IQ, his sister was the poster child of teen angst veering slightly towards straight sociopathy and his grandfather seemed to only value him on the days he was needed or dying. If that wasn't a pre-written suicide note, Morty didn't know what was.

Staring at the remote once more, he noted the two very simplistic functions. Red was to 'save' and the blue to 'start-over', easy enough for a Morty to grasp! He didn't doubt that Rick had made it oh so deliberately condescending, it was a nice touch.

Morty thought of the small bottle of sleeping pills nestled snuggly under his mattress, he had downed them before many times, but he was now mustering the courage to do so without the safety float the remote provided.

After the plane crash and its subsequent reset, all happiness Morty had acquired from his few months of refuge seeped away, he had been built up to feel higher than the heavens only to come plummeting down with no one to catch him. Rick hadn't turned up to his hospital bed after his weeks away, freezing and dying, though that hadn't even happened anymore since the 'do-over', yet its audacity still stung. 

Morty had spiralled afterwards. The red button had been pressed all too many times, only for Morty to throw himself under a 16-wheeler on the freeway, or hop into the gorilla habitat at the zoo. None of it was pretty, the boy was unravelling at the seams. He had attempted everything from slitting his wrists to lighting himself on fire, nothing would alleviate his desire to stop feeling.

He leapt from his roof headfirst and super-glued his nose and mouth shut before diving into a swimming pool with rocks in his pockets. Then did it again and again. Yet he didn't have the balls to do it without the promise of a redo, and an ever-growing part of Morty resented that. Even in attempted suicide, he was cowardly, how fitting. Morty now had an appetite for his own death, and he didn't know if he wanted to persist long enough to see it satiated. There was only so much trial and error he could withstand.

One thing was for certain though, he needed to give the remote back to Rick, or else the endless suicidal Groundhog day would become too much and he would do it for real. Morty didn't know if he wanted that, but he didn't want to search for the answer.

His hand encircled it tightly, knuckles turning white from the tight grip. He didn't want to have to swallow his pride, as well as give away his lifeline, but deep down the teen knew that an "I told you so" from Rick was to be endured for this to at least partially go away. He was sick of his actions being limitless and temporary, he only wished that time travel could whisk him away from the now perpetual cycle of life-ending and regret, Morty just wanted what he was feeling to go away - as feeling loved was now no longer an option. 

Running his other hand through his hair, Morty battled with the prospect of keeping it. He needed to do this. 

"You can do this, Morty. Just go down there and take it on the chin, man," He braced himself and pushed off his bed, legs unsteady and weak, "You've gone through worse."

He refused to let Rick see him this way. Too many times had he cried and wailed in front of the old man, too many times had he been reduced to dust from the lack of concern for his wellbeing. Morty wiped idly at his cheeks with his arm, the agony of the previous hour or so wiping off with a burn. He winced slightly. All he had to do was give it back. Give it back and announce to Rick that he was right, stroke his ego and admit to his shortcomings - maybe he could even make up a spiel about now understanding the necessity of life's trials and lessons, Rick occasionally did like his melodrama. 

So with remote in hand, he ventured downstairs to the garage, preparing to put the life-changing, multiple suicide-inducing events behind him just for a modicum of peace and reprieve. Morty supposed, if he couldn't be happy, he might as well be on good terms with Rick. At least life was easier.

* * *

_"-- and then it hit me, we are who we are because of consequences. We can't live without consequences, y'know? You feel me?"_ _Any modicum of hope that still resided in Morty at the situation being rectified was brutally squashed when he eyed Rick apprehensively, only finding a coldly amused gaze reflecting back at him. Fuck. Not good._

_"Wow, that's a beautiful thought, Morty. But, uh, no. There were definitely consequences." Rick slurped down the rest of his drink noisily, gulping pointedly. Morty's heart skipped several beats, it was definitely possible that it stopped for a second or two actually. Dread started to bubble akin to boiling water in the pit of his stomach, every fibre of his being yelling out in warning._

_"Heheh, w-what are you- what are you talking about?" It was the most coherent sentence he could possibly string together considering the orchestra screeching in his head. Damn, there went those alarm bells, and fuck were they blaring._

_"I mean you did everything you did, it **all** happened."_

_No. No. No, no, no, no, no._

_Morty's mind flung violently back to that time with the women's locker room, degrading Jessica, pantsing his fucking teacher. Oh Jesus, oh sweet Jesus, this absolutely wasn't happening._ _He remembered being pepper-sprayed continuously, the agony searing his eyes not coming close to the excruciating pain in his heart._ _It couldn't be, it couldn't be getting worse. Rick couldn't be punishing him more._

_Could this be an elongated joke, was Rick pushing this further? He was joking with him, he had to be._

_"No!" He stuttered, grappling at the hope that was beginning to dampen. "B-b-but, the respawn button! T-the do-over!" This was it, Morty was actually going to kill himself this time, if the immensity of the humiliation, regret and dread didn't kill him first._

_Rick scoffed, the amused glint in his eyes making way to a sickening smugness, "It's not a do-over, you just did it. **Over and over**."_

_Jessica, Mr Goldenfold, the pool, the old man in the wheelchair, the coffee shop, **her** , the plane crash, the pepper spray. Oh god, how many times had he killed hims-_

_"What are you saying?" Morty could feel his insides curl in revulsion at his actions, at the mere premise that everything he had done when he thought he was utterly invincible being a reality. A reality he couldn't erase. "W-w-what did you do?"_

_Rick rose from his chair with his eyes narrowed, predatory and ready to pounce, it looked as if he were waiting for this moment. "I think it's more appropriate to ask, what did you do?" As he started to walk towards his now trembling grandson he could only take a deep breath in preparation for the Hiroshima bomb he was about to drop._

_"You see Morty, you weren't saving your place and going back. I don't respect time travel. If Ant-Man and the Wasp can do it, I'm not interested," A holographic screen lit up the chilled room with a dim neon glow, with depictions of Morty's many tedious endeavours reflecting back at them. Morty could only watch in horror as the image of him hopping over a man-hole looped, devoid of empathy. He felt sick. "It wasn't so much a do-over as it was isolating a moment in time, splitting your probable selves, and shunting you into a near duplicate, equally probably reality, transporting you into it at the moment of parallel determination."_

_Rick was then ranting, but Morty could hear nothing but a dull ringing, Rick's voice being consumed by the echo of his Math's teacher's yell as he exposed him in front of his classmates, or the old man's cry for help when he thrust him out of his wheelchair to joyride down a flight of stairs, breaking his own leg. He swallowed the bile rising up his throat threateningly, there was no way this was happening._

He tuned back into a deafening silence at the revelation that in his joyriding, he had cold-heartedly murdered several Morty's in his simple fun. He glanced up, tears in his eyes, and Rick was livid. 

For a split second of mind-numbing horror, Morty was characteristically confused. Where had the disgustingly beguiling glint gone from his grandfather's eyes? Was Rick not enjoying this anymore? Proving his point with the expected poise and crassness, had it lost its charm? Instead, any humour in Rick's manner had drained instantaneously as it was then replaced by an inexplicable predatory gaze, one that seemed positively ravenous to tear Morty apart.

Morty turned from Rick's gaze slightly, and watched with dread as his numerous self-inflicted flirtations with death played out before his eyes. His leaps of faith from his bedroom window, or chasing down his bottle of sleeping pills with a naggin of Rick's vodka. No one more gruesome than the other, his suicides on a loop like the bloopers on a sub-par straight to DVD feature.

An image of the younger boy's neck shattering brutally upon impact as he landed head first onto the concrete began to play repeatedly, the cruellest gif to exist, certainly. His pearly white bones stuck in shrapnel shards from his neck, the remains of life seeping away in twitches before Morty's yellow shirt slumped perfectly onto the ground.

There was an obscure sense of beauty in watching himself fall apart on-screen, watching his tears as they crept down his face and crawled past his neck, falling down onto his shirt and creating the most bittersweet imprints. Morty was rarely poetic, he actually didn't like poetry at all, on the contrary, he reckoned that it was pretentious and kind of unnecessary - yet trust him to be so eloquent in watching his own death. Watching the colour drain gradually from his face as he took his last few breaths, rosy cheeks to dustily white, it was artwork in a sort. At the very least, it was emotive. 

"Oh god. Even those times..?" Morty muttered, eyes grazing the cracked concrete beneath his feet. Now he had to endure the mocking.

" **Especially** those times." 

A glance upwards knocked the breath from his lungs. Every time someone had shivered upon muttering Rick's name, every soldier who had stumbled in the attempt at putting distance between themselves and Rick, it all made sense. Rick's eyebrows were furrowed, nostrils twitching, seething physically in every possible way within the confines of his human body. His typically bloodshot yet dulled eyes were now enraptured in what could only be described as fury in its purest form. Rick Sanchez was close to unhinged himself.

"What the fuck is this, Morty?" Rick asked, his tone merely a rumble, voice an octave lower than it ought to have been. He began to prowl forwards. Morty remained rooted to the spot in fear, hands quaking, blood cold and dripping with dread. Rick's eyes spelt 'danger' in block, capitalised writing. "W-What the fuck did you do?"

"Do you have any idea, any f-f-fucking semblance of an idea of how fucking stupid th-you are?"

Rick had witnessed (and caused) more deaths than all known serial killers, government agents and world leaders combined, it very simply had a way of following him. Very possibly, they followed each other. He had become immune to the trauma that came with spying on death, it was practically an everyday occurrence for Rick. The scientist had seen mass suicides, bombings, implosions of planets, beheadings, torture, rape - all of the above and more. Yet even with the comfort and acceptance he had developed with seeing those around him hurt and dying, nothing could've prepared Rick for watching the horrific suicides of his grandson. His partner in crime. His best friend. Over and over and over and over.

"I-I..." It was a feeble attempt at speaking, it seemed that words weren't working for Morty anymore, no matter how much he willed for his brain to function. He had simply switched off. "It's-it's not what it looks like, Rick." Evidently this was not the right thing to have said, as it only did more to rile up the already furious man in front of him, who was more and more within his personal space by the second.

"Oh really Mo-OU-rty, is that right?" He couldn't tell if Rick looked more as though he was going to hit him or hug him, but it wouldn't have been the first time that Morty had been delusional. Must've been seeing things. "Be-Because it looked like you tried to off yourself. Many, many times."

"R-Rick-"

"But no, I m-must be seeing things, Morty," He stepped closer, "So you tell me what's happening here then, hmm?"

"I w-w-was just upset, okay?" Morty whispered, feeling as though with each word he was tiptoeing closer and closer into the jaws of a ferocious lion. "I couldn't keep- I just couldn't anymore."

"What is this? T-Twenty-fourteen Tumblr?" Rick said, a quiver in his lip failed to go away, "You want me to hug you and lick your balls b-because you slit your fucking wrists? Is that it?" 

They were undoubtedly cruel words, a poor attempt at masking the rising shake in the typically stoic man's words, Rick was a cracking dam. And even his consistently obtuse grandson could see it.

"Was all this just a ploy? T-Tell me it was just a ploy for attention or some shit, Mo-OU-rty." Morty didn't answer, he had dug himself so deep into Rick's bad books that lying would simply be the engraving on his tombstone. "Fucking answer me!" 

"No," Morty breathed, his voice a ghost of what it had been previously. "It-It wasn't a ploy, Rick."

Rick stepped forwards. One threatening step closer was all it took. 

"How **dare** you think that you can do that, you little shit," Rick didn't stutter once, yet his voice was cracking, he got into his grandsons face. "How dare you think that you can just take yourself away from-"

A resounding bang of multiple engines sounded from outside the entrance to the garage, sirens echoed from either end of the street. What now? What possibly could be happening now?

_"Morty Smith, come out with your hands up you sick fuck. We're also fine just shooting if you want a suicide by cop."_

_Jessica, Mr Goldenfold, the pool, the wheelchair, the coffee shop, the plane crash, her._

Morty was the one consistency in Rick’s life. An inconsistent consistency, if that made any modicum of sense. Morty was safe, Morty was familiar, Morty was _home_. Surprisingly, this wasn’t a back-handed way at calling the teen boring, it was anything but. No person in Rick’s life had ever taken up such a permanent role by being such a peculiar mixture of safe but spectacular. Morty was was easy to deduce and rarely surprised him, yet when he did it was in such a completely riveting and addicting way. With each snipe and jibe they made at each other, or the jokes Morty would crack that had him hurtling over and grasping his knees with laughter, it was space heroin to Rick.

_Jessica, Mr Goldenfold, the pool, the wheelchair, the coffee shop, the plane crash, her._

Morty was brave even in his weaknesses, and much stronger than he had any right to be (in every capacity but physically). Morty was predictable. Until he wasn’t.

_Jessica, Mr Goldenfold, the pool, the wheelchair, the coffee shop, the plane crash, her. They had given Morty the option.  
_

The garage door was sent crashing inwards, revealing a team of armed tanks and furious chanting protestors with picket signs, images of his face vandalised provocatively all over the amateur drawings. All of the things Morty had done to upset these people, it couldn't be forgiven. Was this his ironic lifeline?

_Take it._

He had merged with the alternate Morty's, the ones he had murdered in cold blood, he was now living in a true reality with no 'do-over'. Every decision now seemed weighted to such an un-carryable extent. A weight he had not experienced in a very long time, one that he had missed. The weight of future consequence. What if he just stepped forward and feigned hostility for a mere second? Morty knew the trigger happy police officers would happily offload their stress and hardships onto him in a heartbeat, apathetic as they always were.

_‘Take it, Morty, what have you got left to lose?’_

Morty moved remarkably fast, nimble and youthful legs carrying him in a way his grandfathers could not. And nothing could’ve or would’ve prepared Rick for the split second of negligence it took for Morty to sprint across the garage and into the glowing, accusatory glare of the two helicopters surrounding the house.

He heard a broken yell, startling him out of his shocked stupor, a yell he could only afterwards pinpoint as his own shouting, “Morty!”

Rick’s hands lunged forwards to where the head of curls had just been, so close, he had been a hair’s breadth away.

And now he could do nothing but watch for the split second it took for his grandson to be filled with lead, body recoiling violently against the perpetrators of the outside world. The cops yelled as bullet after bullet ripped through the teenaged boy, a maniacal sight, humanity stripped to its barest foundations. The yellow shirt was torn with clarity, a tantalisingly slow ooze of red tainting the purity of the yellow, the innocence it once possessed long, long ago. 

A yell of rage ripped from Rick's throat, veins thrumming with bloodlust, only heightened as he watched Morty's frail body bounce to the floor with a resounding thump. A pool of deep, thick scarlet liquid leaked from his tiny body. There was so much, too much.

Rick charged forwards, knees weak with the urge to vomit. What entailed, too indescribable.

* * *

Morty awoke to stiffness in his limbs and a tightness in his head, his mouth feeling as though it had been stuffed with cotton, his throat scratched and pleading for relief.

He groaned, pained and dehydrated, more than he had ever been in his life short but eventful life. Every crevice of his body exhibited a dull but tolerable ache, even his bones reminded him of it. What an utter betrayal. An even more strenuous activity was opening his eyes, the tips of his lashes having stuck to the tops of cheeks, which felt swollen and inflated. 

After blinking several times, Morty's eyes seemed to grow accustomed to his surroundings. A greying ceiling, musty beige walls. Where was he? He shuffled once more and turned his head, his neck creaking, only to lock eyes with his grandfather perched on the side of the bed, who was surveying him with a sort of ashamed curiosity. 

He was in Rick's room. 

Though he hadn't looked in the mirror, Morty imagined that nothing about his appearance would be particularly pleasant to look at, as he could practically feel the bruises spattered across each area of his body. Yet even with this ignorance, he reckoned that Rick looked worse. His skin had dulled and drained of colour, leaving him a pasty and gnarly mess of hollowed cheekbones and tired eyes. His mouth, which forever seemed to be covered in luminous spittle, was dry and cracked and devoid of any tell-tale sign of binge-drinking. Huh.

The way Morty eyed Rick seemed to unsettle him, as his lean fingers twitched toward the inner pocket of his lab coat before he jerked away subtly, catching himself in his subconscious craving for a swig of his flask. Rick moved his hands into his lap to quell any more alcoholic tics, taking instead to running a hand through his wild hair with a deep sigh. The sigh of a man who had seen it all, and had decided it was enough. He looked at Morty deeply again, eyes narrowed.

Morty opened his mouth to speak, as much as his throat would allow him, but Rick held an authoritative hand upwards and his mouth snapped closed. It took another moment of crushing silence and yet another deep sigh before it was said.

"I'm sorry," Rick uttered, looking away from the teen as the confession spilt from his lips, "I'm sorry, Morty."

Yet again Morty opened his lips to culminate a response, but he was shushed yet again, he was much too tired to be irritated by it. "I know this won't-can't make up for what I've done, kid. I won't let it. But I'm sorry."

"W-Why, Rick?" It was a loaded question, plagued with self-doubt and barely suppressed trauma. Still a small part of Morty considered that perhaps none of it was Rick's fault at all, that a blame game was inconsequential to the facts, the fact being that Morty did it all to himself. He attempted to override this part of himself.

"Your grandpa's a shithead Morty, that's why."

A sharp wave of anger ripped through Morty. That was his excuse? His mouth tightened and eyebrows furrowed in a way that said, _'I already knew that, and?'_

Rick knew it wouldn't be enough. "To p-prove a point. But you already kn-knew that didn't you?" Rick still couldn't look at him, his eyes averted to the fissure in the skirting where a family of mice lived humbly. The shame was palpable, emanating in waves from the genius like radioactivity.

"What was her name?"

A surprised gasp left Morty's crumbling lips at the question, memories of the brown hair and the thick-rimmed glasses hitting like a tidal wave to his brain. All that he had lost at the click of a button. Morty had lived several lifetimes at the age of fourteen and had jackshit to show for it. "Robin."

"Does it still hurt?" Rick questioned, voice lowering as if the topic of love rendered him unable to speak correctly. "Y-Yeah, everyday."

Rick's eyes moved to his quickly, then back again to the safety spot residing on the floor, then back to his again. An inner monologue was burning in Rick's mind, and how Morty craved to hear it. "Y'know I get wound up when you talk-speak to me that way, M-Morty. I just-" 

"I wanted to show you who's boss, c-call you a little shit when this was all over, you'd never be a dickbiscuit to me ag-AI-n," Rick stopped himself again before biting the bullet, "I never would've intended for any of that shit to happen. I wanted to stop it all, but I didn't. And then your fucking plane had to go and crash in the middle of the Antarctic, and I was too much of a shitstain to fucking do anything! God!"

The scientist grabbed fistfuls of his hair, pulling blindly at it with sheer anger and self-loathing. "Fucking idiot! To p-prove a fucking point," He was borderline nonsensical, "I killed my stupid shithead grandson over-over a fucking point."

Morty sat up, ignoring the shouts of disapproval from his aching limbs, grabbing Rick's hands from his head and yanking them away from the clusters of hair that were threatening to come alongside his hands in fluffy, blue clumps.

"R-Rick stop!" Morty yelled. This was the last thing he needed, Rick going off the rails on him. He was a thoroughly unpredictable creature at the best of times, the present being no different. His eyes met Rick's icy blue stare once more, but neither of them looked away, Rick was manic and disassociated - a fickle concoction. "Jesus."

"Next time I hurt you like that again, you go to the lockbox under my desk and you fucking shoot me, Morty. You fucking understand? Shoot me," Rick, though manic and inconsolable, seemed deadset and certain on this, however. "You are **never** to hurt yourself like that again, you piece of shit. Never. Hurt me instead, you and I both know I deserve it."

"I can't. I won't."

A yell of frustration wrenched its way from Rick's lips, he grabbed Morty's wrists, "This is the fucking problem, kid. Y-Y-You're too forgiving, you're, uh, too soft. Don't forgive this, don't forgive me." The grip slackened immensely when Morty let out a hiss, harsh voice dimming to another sigh. Rick could go for the world record at that rate.

"This was all over m-me and that acid?" The teens voice seemed to grow slightly in its strength, it was hardly confidence, but it sounded less as if Morty had been trampled on so it was a start. "C'mon man, l-like really?"

"I know. I fucking, I just, I wasn't thinking. Ego was bruised from you, Mort, and I just saw red." Rick was stifling back the urge to break down completely, and if the younger boy wasn't occupying a large portion of his bed, he almost certainly would have. 

His plan to show Morty up had initially worked spectacularly. Rick watched from the garage with unsuppressed smugness each time Morty switched places with his alternate self to peek into the girl's locker room or re-pick his nose, even more so when he had cussed out the principal or called out the trope-ridden school bully on his blatant internalised homophobia surrounding his poorly concealed sexuality. Yet it all took a nose-dive when Morty had met the girl outside the coffee shop. As time seemed to whizz onwards, the less the notion of pulling the rug out from under Morty seemed appealing, he looked so... he looked so happy. Happier than Rick had ever seen him.

With each toothy grin and hearty laugh from his grandson, Rick realised how much he was stifling Morty's true potential. His confidence hadn't developed properly, and even now it was fleeting at best. He was frail, underfed and overworked, his developing body burning calories into the deficits with the amount of sprinting and conniving the duo got up to on the daily. The dickhead wasn't even as thick as Rick had a tendency to make him out to be.

What Morty lacked in conventional intelligence, he soared in his empathy and social awareness. Rick had seen him hug crying babies and comfort distressed youths with a level of jarring perceptiveness, his brain was as loving as his heart was warm - and Rick continually taunted him for it.

Just this once, Rick had to be emotionally mature, or else he would lose Morty, for good this time.

"Seeing you like that, baby, it--" Rick took a sharp intake of breath, "It fucking ripped me in half." His eyes bore holes into the teenager's, not hoping to intimidate, but rather to prove his sincerity.

"Seeing you fucking bleed-bleeding out on your bed, or diving off the bastard roof. I can't let it happen again. I can't see it again or I'll fucking jump with you Morty, I'm serious." Morty's eyes widened comically, it was very possibly the largest show of emotion the elder had ever allowed him to witness.

"And feeding yourself to those lowlife, scum of the earth cops? I mean, shit! You fucking moron. What the f-fuck were you thinking? I nearly fucking lost you--" Rick's tone, climbing in octaves, came to a halt. "I uh, I can't lose you, Morty. I care about you, you little shit, and if I have to coddle you the end of time to keep you here, I'll do it. I p-p-promise."

Morty tugged at Rick's sleeve lightly, drawing his dwindling attention back to him. He didn't want Rick to sink again. "Rick."

Here's to hoping that the sociopathic fucker would eventually begin to make it up to him, somehow. A little bit of incentive:

"I forgive you."

**Author's Note:**

> All in all I’m pretty damn proud of this work, I just hope the ending stayed consistent with the rest of it.
> 
> Feel free to constructively criticise or comment!
> 
> P.S. I’m looking for beta readers for future works - anyone interested please message me @nastyblighter on Tumblr!


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